Life
by SwordofallCreation
Summary: A story about an ordinary guy and his not so ordinary friend.
1. Chapter 1

**In Which My Asshole Friend Becomes God, and I Have to Keep the World Sane**

Life was routine. I got up, washed myself, ate food, and went to school. A simple pattern formed from a simple life.

Waking up with a yawn, I stumbled out of bed and made it to the shower, waking up slowly as I stood there with the water pouring down. After finishing my shower, I got out and put on my uniform, going through the motions with more muscle memory than actual thought. Step 1 and 2 of my morning done.

Going down the stairs to the first floor, I opened up the fridge to check what we still had and found myself being greeted with some primordial sludge that immediately leaped at me and latched onto my face.

"Mmmmrffh!" My muffled screams cried out. Stumbling around blindly in a panic, I relied on scraps of my memory as my hand pulled open a drawer and took out a lighter, and set the monster on my face ablaze. It's dying shrieks were painfully sharp, and I shook the remnants of its body off my face.

Scowling, I turned to the red-haired guy dozing at the couch. I looked at the lighter in my hand contemplatively, before sighing and putting it away. I filled a cup to the brim with cold water, and walked closer before splashing it all over the other man.

Naturally, only a single drop lands on him before the rest of the water simply floats in midair, frozen in time. He stirs awake and looks at me questioningly, and pushes the water to the side, floating and still.

"You forgot to deal with your last bio-experiment, Void." I said tiredly. "Would it fucking kill you to make sure they die before you stuff the cheese or whatever you experimented with into the fridge again?"

He shrugs. "Sue me. I felt like taking a nap after trying out biokinesis, and so I just put it back in after I got drowsy. I'm not a god yet."

Ah yes.

Another part of my daily routine in life involves trying to make a lazy and annoying person who has received unlimited potential with superpowers actually give a shit about others and life.

After eating a heavenly breakfast, I put on my shoes, grab my bag and start to leave. Looking back into the living room, I see a small black ball floating in Void's hands and warping my perception of everything.

I close the door on my way out and take my bike out, prepared to go to school.

Just another day in my life.

There is little that gets in the way of a wrathful god and his vengeance.

There is little that can withstand the workings of a benevolent god.

But an apathetic god…

"Damnit all Void, would it kill you to go outside and stop the war on our doorstep with your fucking powers?!"

"No, I still have to beat this level. Talk later. Focus now."

An apathetic god is a little fucking shite.

This is the story of how my asshole of a friend became a god, and how I was left running damage control.

Zipping through the streets on my bike, I felt the breeze against my body and smiled as the Japanese heat was slightly relieved. Screw going to school during the summer, I wanted to live in my air conditioned room.

Grumbling slightly at the stuffy summer weather, I got off my bike and walked through the school gates, leaving the bike at the parking area unlocked or chained.

Humming a small tune, I made my way into the main school building, took my shoes off, and put on the indoor shoes the school provided. Going into my classroom, I plopped myself down in my seat, tired from the thought of another day in school and dealing with Void once I got back home.

"Oh, hey Jin." I heard a voice call out. Perking up, I turned to face the voice, and found one Murakami Ryouta.

"Yo, Murakami." I lazily waved. "You doing fine?"

"Yeah, the astronomy club's doing good. You look dead tired though." He responds.

I shrug at his concerned voice. "Housemate was keeping me up most of the night. Wish he'd learn to keep his experiments quiet. The only reason we haven't gotten any noise complaints so far is because we don't have any neighbors." He gives me a sympathetic look, before going to sit in his own seat as the teacher came in.

"Settle down, settle down. Now, all of you, we have a new student joining us today." Whispers began to break out immediately from the classroom. It was pretty obvious why, the test to get into this high school was a pretty difficult one for anyone to take. If it wasn't for the fact that I already knew most of the material and that Void had somehow made me able to understand Japanese with ease, I probably wouldn't have gotten in myself.

"Her name is Kuroha Neko." At that, a girl with jet-black hair that fell to her waist walked into the classroom, wearing some sort of odd uniform that obviously wasn't the school's standard issue. I didn't recognize what school it was from, so it probably wasn't from around here.

A loud bang shook me out of my musing, causing me to snap my head towards the sound. Murakami was standing, frozen in shock and gaping at the new arrival.

Murakami? Be shocked by a girl? I knew he wasn't some hormonal moron, in fact he was almost a step away from being a misogynist. He really didn't care for girls, so what surprised him to act so out of character?

I thought for a little bit. Transfer student after the beginning of the school year? Odd clothes, good figure? Yup, this was obviously a manga plot. Probably a harem romcom too, if another one comes.

I take an eraser from my case and throw it at Murakami's head powerfully, rebounding off his thick skull and landing on the floor. "Mura, I know you want to show off your amazing boner to the new girl, but that's sexual harassment. Siddown already, would ya." Murakami reacts a bit slowly, turning bright red at my words and cautiously returning to his seat, his eyes still on the transfer student. Heads turn toward me, and I suddenly take great interest in the number of tiles on the ceiling. Damn if Void hasn't been rubbing off on me.

The school day passed by remarkably quietly after that. A few people crowded around the transfer student, but nothing strange happened much. The only real oddity was Murakami's intense gaze, and how he kept stewing all day, his mood growing more intense to the point that everyone could feel it, and quickly got out of his way when he went to talk to the girl during lunch.

"Oi. You're Kuroneko, aren't you?" Ah Murakami, such forwardness is bold and certainly better than most harem protags, but respecting personal space is important.

"I don't understand." And Murakami's pet name is shot down! Houston, we have a situation! Mayday, mayday!

"Don't mess around! We knew each other back then, and I can prove it!" I slowly took out my lunch. This was a nice drama to watch as I ate.

"What are you talking about?"

As the two went back and forth, I felt my container _shake_ a little as I held it in my hand. I frowned and focused on it, the strange slap noise not registering to me. A shaking lunch container...and Void had forgotten to kill his last experiment as proven by this morning's events…

I swore loudly, drawing attention to myself once more as I stuffed the box into my bag and grabbed the bag with me and began to walk out of the classroom. Once I got outside and reached the back of the building, I took out my lunchbox and set it on the ground, away from the leaves and everything else.

Rummaging through my bag, I pulled out a decently sized can of hairspray and a lighter. Flicking the lighter to make a flame, I held the thing in front of the hairspray and directed the spray at my lunchbox, resulting in a gout of flame, torching my poor box. I repeated this until the plastic was melting and I could see the unnatural thing inside die. Phew. That was an issue. I took my water bottle and emptied its remains over my now deformed lunchbox, causing some steam to rise into the air. After wiping off the water, I stuffed it back into my bag and walked back inside for class. No reason to skip classes, I didn't want to be kicked out just yet.

-x-x-x-

"I'm home." Finishing my half of the traditional Japanese ritual, I step inside and hear the clank of metals being moved. "Void?"

"Up here," he calls from the second floor. "Finishing up something. Make sure to pick up your hard hat."

Sighing, I drop my bag on the couch, and pick up one of the many hard hats lying about as I go up the stairs to Void's room and studio. As someone who's growing on the path to becoming a god, he has to have his own little space for his creativity. There's a few plots of land that house some of his old creations, and I never visit the basement anymore because that place is a literal maze.

Stepping into his room, I put on the hat and peer in. "So, what'choo been up to today?" I ask, scanning the room. All seems normal, until…

"Yeah, I got bored, so I decided to make Memetic Bikini Armor. Inertia cancellation for blunt damage and more protection than plate armor. Because I'm that good."

I stood there, speechless and remembering why I tried to rein him in and make him a good person. "...Okay, I won't ask why, but I do need you to do something. Work on your tech tree would ya? A transfer student came in today and we both know the chances of that happening in a non-anime setting. I need info."

Void simply shrugs and cleans up his mess with a snap of his fingers. "Alright, I'll get to it. That said, how was your lunch?"

My stomach grumbling is enough of a response. I sigh and take off my hard hat, leaving it on a hanger as I went down to my own room. Void got on the computer, grumbling a bit under his breath about bullshit hollywood hacking but partaking in it himself. Ah, how thou hast fallen, former IT man.

As I took a soothing shower, Void formed the ingredients for dinner from thin air and began to cook. It'd been a few hungry days before he'd learned how to conjure things that could stay, and a bit longer until he could make the finished meal appear altogether. Now, he cooks because it's interesting to him and because he never wants to eat anything but the best food ever again.

We ate the meal in peace, enjoying the seafood menu. I'd seen some of the prices for a few of the things on our table tonight, and all of them combined would probably have been enough to pay off a politician.

"So," Void began. "I think your gut hit it dead on this time."

I scowled. "Hey, my gut is perfectly capable of making good decisions. Somewhat."

He shrugs in response. "In any case, Kuroha Neko. Information listed is probably mostly bullshit, except for the obvious things like physical features. Background is definitely suspect, seeing as the listed address shows some wooden platform in the mountains when viewed from a sat-cam, not a house. But here's the kicker- there's a death certificate going back years ago for one Kuroha Neko. So, there's definitely something odd going on here." He muses.

I let the information sink, in absorbing it as I chewed on the salmon on my plate. "Childhood friend long thought dead? Explains Mura's shocked response and the drama that went on during lunchtime. Too bad I couldn't catch all of it because _somebody_ left my lunch as an alien monster instead of as actual food." I pointedly stared at Void, who smiled and nodded. Prick.

"Anyway, I'm gonna take a nap. As it's the first night after the first girl transfer student introduces herself, it'll probably end up in typical cliche harem ecchi antics. I'll talk to him tomorrow in depth about this, might be out late visiting Mura's observatory." Void snickers at the mention of the observatory, and I roll my eyes and begin to clear out the plates. Void looks at me, a question in his eyes, and I steadily ignore it. Stacking the used kitchenware in the sink, I turn on the water and begin to do the dishes by hand, going through the entire process by hand, scrubbing the things down as much as I could.

With my work done and my questions answered for now, I went to my room and collapsed into my bed. Surely nothing too bad could happen in one evening.


	2. Chapter 2

**In Which I Quickly Learn Many New Things**

I walked into school crossing my fingers and hoping beyond hope that I had not accidentally destroyed the plot of the manga I was involved in through tempting Murphy last night. At the very least, I hadn't said those goddamn words aloud.

Upon seeing Murakami hale and hearty and without a sex change or some odd girl clinging to his arm, I sighed in relief. Mura noted my apparent relief immediately, perceptive little guy he is. "Hey Jin, what's wrong?"

"That's what I'd rather ask you." I returned, shooting down that potentially awkward line of inquiry. "Anything odd happen last night? Natural disaster or something _really_ odd?"

It was brief, and had I been actually as tired as I acted, I definitely wouldn't have caught it. But when I asked about an odd happening, he did definitely stiffen up. "Nothing much. Weather was a bit bad though, so it made going home more tiring." He smoothly covered his slight shock.

I shrugged in response. "Same here, except Void's apparently gotten into metalworking now. Don't ask, please."

He respects my wishes like a true bro and great friend, before flushing a bit as we walk to our classroom. "S-speaking of, did you have to call me out yesterday like that? It was pretty embarrassing…"

"You're right. I'll do my best not to lie about things that don't exist anymore." I state blandly, leaving him sputtering as I continue into the classroom, where I made my way to my seat and saw that girl, Kuroha Neko, seated and early. Before I could decide upon an action, the bell rang and the homeroom teacher walked in. Perhaps another time.

-x-x-x-

The first half of the day passed by relatively calmly after that. No explosions, no sudden magical girl transformations, no truly insane moments…

Well, excepting for that moment in Classical Japanese when Kuroha proved to apparently be unable to read the characters and defaulted to some broken Hiragana. Reminded me of my time when I had been completely illiterate in Kanji, before Void had worked his magical bullshit and gave me super linguistic mojo. More interesting was the fact that Mura had taken Kuroha outside, claiming "she was sick" and under the pretense of having to take her to the nurse's office. It was pretty clear he was covering for her, but the progression was still decent enough to watch.

Lined up alongside different sides of the pool, we were currently in swim class, and sighing as we sat in the heat. The boys and the girls were gender separated and took turns using different sides of the pool.

Looking over, Kuroha was wildly flailing about, panicking as though she were drowning. Knowing her height and where she was standing in the pool...yeah. She really can't swim. Or apparently, calmly stand in the water. Did she have some kind of traumatic experience with water or something?

Behind me, the dull chatter of the hormonal guys was easily tuned out by simply focusing on other things. Damn, being a teenager made everyone deal with being horny, but have some goddamn measure of self-control.

I continued to do my laps before panicked voices above water brought my attention to the girl's side, where two girls were floating next to another girl, who was submerged and wasn't moving at all. Teachers and students kept running around on the side of the pool, calling for help and shouting, and I could see bubbles float to the surface above the stuck girl. Damnit, if I had the normal uniform on I coul-

The thought was erased the moment a _massive_ explosion of sorts occurred next to the girls in the pool, sending a flood of water out and to the surrounding grounds past the chain-link fence. I looked around, trying to find the source of the chaos, before my eyes landed on one figure in particular. Kuroha Neko.

The only person who was entirely unfazed by the event. It took me more than a moment to snatch my eyes away from the event, but she viewed it so...passively, as if it were nothing more than a daily occurrence.

Nearby, Mura was spewing some bullshit about how the place was deteriorating and that it was a miracle that it had happened, and the others all lapped it up. My eyes flitted from Kuroha to Mura. There was already a connection between them if Mura was standing up for her. I had to find out what it was.

So, I did what came naturally to me.

When the bell rang for lunch, I walked to the door and opened it, pausing to look back into the classroom.

"I've got extras for lunch."

That one statement made Murakami rise from his seat slowly, not with the laggardness of a tired high schooler but rather a tense sort of grace of a hunter trying not to alert its prey before pouncing. I shook the plastic container in my hand a little and walked out. I didn't need to look back again to see if Mura was following, this was almost routine now for some reason.

Using a few shortcuts, I managed to get outside with Mura decently fast enough, standing where I had torched one of the lunchboxes yesterday. That had made me check this morning to see that my lunch was actually lunch and not another monster slime.

Opening the lid of my lunchbox, I watched Murakami drool a little as he saw the food in there. Pavlov proves eternal, eh. What can I say, literal godlike food is always amazing, so long as it is food.

"So, Mura," I ask with feigned nonchalance, "mind telling me why you were bullshitting to cover Kuroha's ass back there?"

Murakami immediately stiffens up, his attention snapping from the food in my head to look at me. Good. Confirmation that this is serious.

"You can go on and on about how it was deteriorating and the people standing there made it burst," I continued languidly, "But we both know that ain't the truth. Miracles don't happen with human actions. The most damning thing, though?" I raised a finger. "That transfer student, Kuroha Neko, wasn't surprised by what happened at all. Not a flinch in emotion on her face. As if she were _expecting_ it to happen." Murakami was sweating a bit now, time for the final touch.

"So, I'll come right out and ask. Is she an ESPer or something? A magician?"

Murakami flinched back as if he had been physically struck. "L-look, Jin, ther-"

"Save it." I cut him off abruptly. "I live with Void remember? Remember those 'magic tricks' he showed you? Like pulling a swordfish out of his boxers? You accepted that it was just a magic trick, but I think it's obvious that it really wasn't at this point."

"Oh...alright then." He slumps a little, the rapid-fire barrage of his reality cracking getting to him. "It's just- Kuroha saved me yesterday. And she knew what was going to happen today as well. She's got a friend, who saw that I would die, and that Saeki-san would drown. But...when she saved me, I caught a glimpse of the area under her armpit." At my incredulous look, he continues on. "Kuroneko, my childhood friend who I lost and looks a lot like Kuroha Neko-san, and she had three moles arranged into a triangle under her armpit. Since they weren't there...well, at least I know it's not her."

Giving him a flat look, I promptly dope slap him.

"Ow! What was that for?" Mura cries out.

I sigh and put down my lunch. "Let me get this straight. Your kid friend Kuroneko had moles in that area, and since Kuroha doesn't have moles there, you're getting all sad since your hopes are dashed. Three things to say- amnesia, growth, and surgery. All these can account for why she _looks_ the exact same but isn't the same as you may remember, in any combination or reason." I pull out a pair of chopsticks and start eating my lunch. "For example, if you had a birthmark on your dick, then it should be in a roughly similar but slightly different location as you grew up because your dick grew a little, like a centimeter, right? And surgery, man the shit you can pull off with different pieces of skin and lasers. But we're getting off topic. What do you know about her actually and her clairvoyant friend?"

He pauses from my brutal insult and rekindling of his hope mixed into a single phrase, and shrugs. "Not much, really. I've told you everything I know already. There's nothing I can really add to it."

Frowning, I take a bite out of my food, and hum. "Well, alright then. Not exactly something I can solve by banging my head into a wall, so might as well ask her later." Murakami nods in agreement and I toss him a second lunchbox from my bag, and we dig in heartily, letting the good food wash away our heavy thoughts.

-x-x-x-

Man, trash duty sucks. I get the reasoning for it, having the kids clean up the classrooms since janitors are a foreign concept to Japanese schools, but it seriously drags on sometimes.

Some other random guy -Okada or something, I didn't bother to remember- was my cleaning partner for today, and we went through the entire ritual without speaking a word to each other, our actions robotic and more memorized than actually thinking them through at this point.

Once I finally finished cleaning up, I walked back outside and took my unlocked bike from the rack and wheeled it out of the school grounds, tired once more from the sheer mind-numbing experience of school.

Bicycling back, I thought about exactly what had happened today. It was looking...less likely now that this was a standard fluffy harem world. Wait, lots of shows were fluffy harem on the surface yet still utterly a shitty world if it were explored in depth or was simply a shitty world in some ways straight up.

So perhaps this was a primarily action harem show? Certainly wouldn't be the first. The events painted to an original idea(somewhat), entering a girl into another school with a friend who has future-sight to save people. From what was going on, I'd wager that there would be another near-death soon in the school or in the town and she'd be around for a little longer to try and understand. Murakami, the Kuroha route seems tied into your past, follow it for more revelations!

Thoughts cramming my mind, I stepped into my home, far-removed from the rest of the town. Getting a place that wouldn't be crowded and where we didn't have to worry about dealing with other people was basically impossible, so we'd made a new house appear in the forest. Void remained as bullshit as ever.

I asked him once, why he didn't try to do more, like save the world or end wars, and he simply shrugged. He didn't have the motivation for it, he said. Too much already went on, and he enjoyed his peace and comforts.

I could see why he didn't. He liked being human, for all he threw away from his past life. Being omniscient and trying to deal with every problem that came up...would be nothing short of hell. At least, that's the only way I could think of it.

"Hey." A voice broke me out of my thoughts. "You doing all right there?"

Void. That wasn't his real name, it'd only been a username that he represented himself as. But, as time passed, his past life looked less and less relevant to him. So he dropped it, and asked me to just keep calling him Void.

"Just peachy." I replied. "You look smug. Well, more than usual anyways."

He grins and grabs me by the shoulder, leading me along to my room. As he slowly walks up to my closet, I hear a faint drumroll in the background, building up the suspense. With one smooth motion, he opens the closet and presents...my clothes?

"Okay, I'll admit I'm kinda lost here." I say. "You wanted to show me my clothes? Why, are they now apparently all able to keep me from dying in a volcano or something?"

He snaps his fingers. "Even better! They are now climate controlled, every last one of them! So the heat and humidity won't ever bother us again. Yeah, they can already give you some boosts to your durability and reflexes, and your shoes can have you jump like an anime character, but tell me that climate control isn't amazing to have during the Japanese summer."

A smile breaks out on my face. "Never change, Void. Wait, no, you need to change. The fuck did you have to ruin my mood for? I was almost going to reach max angst and contemplation about life. Do you know what that does for my plot armor?"

"Iiiit kills it if you go too far?" He replies innocently. "Besides, you don't need plot armor. I _am_ the plot armor!"

"If you tell me to 'wear' you, then I am going to stay in the basement and lock it. I'll even bring cards for me and Gerbils to play. Just to stay down there."

"I know you don't swing that way, but…" He pats the wall, and the room shifts, the light disappearing, and a wooden doorway of sorts in between me and Void. Confused, I walk through the doorway and look back, seeing my closet.

He laughs as I step out, and I look at him oddly as he chuckles on his way to the kitchen. What's so funny- oh that son of a bitch.

One of these days.


	3. Chapter 3

**In Which Common Sense is (not) Regained**

* * *

Well.

Second day in a row in which I'm wrong about what's going to happen. Being Genre Savvy is only effective, it seems, if one knows _what_ setting they're in.

Kuroha wasn't in school. Her empty seat was a jarring note, a pretty big sign right in my face of just how much I'd been off the mark.

My mood turned sullen for the rest of the day, even with the fact that I was remarkably comfortable throughout the entire day even in my winter uniform. The out-of-season uniform had gotten me more than a few stares, but I didn't care about that.

At the end of the day, the teacher called out Murakami, asking him to deliver some school documents to Kuroha that she had been missing some info on the records that the school had to keep track of. The proximity of her written home location to the observatory was pretty close enough to be a fairly short walk for Murakami, so he was being the one saddled with all the work.

"Heeey Mura~" I sidled up to him. "How is my fine fellow member of the Astrology club today?"

He returns a flat look at me. "Astronomy, not astrology. One is studying planets and stars, the other is hocus-pocus. And you've never been a member of the Astronomy club, I asked and you shot it down."

"No, I was the unofficial mascot all this time. And now, I guess we should both go to the observatory, eh?" I elbow his ribs.

He packs his bags, sighing. "Fine. But why are you so eager to come along? Did you fall for Kuroha?"

He freezes as I grab him by the shoulders and look him straight into the eyes. "Murakami. Repeat after me. NTR is a trash fetish. Kinkshaming is perfectly acceptable if targeted at NTR."

Murakami, clearly shaken up, nods slowly. "O-kay?" Satisfied, I let go of him and grab my own bag as we go.

-x-x-x-

"Aren't you bringing your bike?" Murakami asks. Leaving it behind must seem like a strange choice with how fast it can go, but it would just be dead weight.

I shake my head. "You don't have a bike, so my only options would be to just lug it around or to have you ride in the back somehow, and I don't want that many BL flags to rise in a 24 hour period. I've already walked out of a closet yesterday night."

We both made our way to the given location, Murakami simply following instructions and me going to check the place out. Kuroha hadn't exactly convinced me that she was some sort of cover-up genius with how the whole thing at school was dealt with, so some clues should still be there.

The walk up the hill must have been tiring, with how Murakami was sweating and slightly panting as we trekked upward. I was whistling a tune, comfortable as could be in my longsleeve jacket and thick pants that made it so that instead of experiencing the humid Japanese summer, I was experiencing the joys of a perfectly cool room. The dirty glares mixed with confused looks Mura sent me were glorious.

"So, you talked about your friend, Void." Mura says after some time passes. "I've only really met him once, when he came to school because of your suspension. You said yesterday that he was a magician as well. What did you mean?"

Huh. So he did remember that. Wait, he has perfect memory, of course he would remember. Fucking lucky bastard.

Hmm...what to say? Ah.

"He's an asshole." I state bluntly. "If the world were to have the sun rise in the west, the sky be black, and the moon to fart diamonds, he'd still be an asshole. He'd also probably be the asshole responsible for all that happening. With the reasoning, 'fuck it, I could.'"

"Um," Murakami looks off-put at my sudden declaration. "What can he do, then?"

"Check the box next to 'Anything' and you've got a decent start." I reply. His perplexed face brings back memories. I'm pretty sure that was close to what I looked like the first time Void realized his powers.

Any further questioning from Mura is cut short as the rumbling of vehicles announces the presence of what looks like three military convoys. I quickly grab Mura and have both of us face the side over the cliff's edge, turning our backs to the military vehicles. As they get out of view, I see the panic on Murakami's face, slowly spreading through his frame as he hurriedly walks to the location that Kuroha wrote as her home address.

"Damnit!" His fist hits hard wood as he punches the wooden railing of the open-air viewing area. Kuroha's address had lead us to this place, and it was certainly uninhabited, like Void had said.

"So, what now, Murakami?" I asked, arms crossed. "This isn't her home, obviously. D'ya think she's got a hideout nearby, or was this a complete red herring?"

"No…" Mura mumbles. "No. She escaped from a facility due to luck, so those people that looked like they had military cars, they're probably part of the organization after her. I don't know if she got caught yet, but we can only hope." The tension in his shoulder slowly bleeds out, as he straightens out and starts thinking more clearly.

"There's got to be something near here that'll give us a clue as to where Kuroha is. She escaped by chance, and she'd been in that facility for her entire life; I think it's safe to say that she doesn't have outside contacts or much help."

Ahh, there's the smart Mura that thinks things through. He's sharp, and his memory is definitely a powerful weapon. But his analysis is one of the things that really makes him shine. "Lead the way then, brave Club Leader."

-x-x-x-

A short ways away from the wooden observatory, we stumbled upon a fence with warning signs telling people to keep out. Mura and I shared a look, and we both started to climb up the fence, scaling the obstruction easily and landing on the other side with a light thud. Both of us knew what could happen if we were caught here, but that didn't matter at this point.

"A deserted village...right, there was something like this here." Mura mumbled.

"Mind filling me in?" I asked. The area was certainly ruined. Cars that looked like they were being swallowed up by nature, crumbling houses, and ramshackle remains of what could have been a nice little village brought to mind some unpleasant thoughts, especially considering we were looking for a "witch" who had escaped from some sort of shady facility through luck.

"The place was supposed to have sunk into a dam, but the plans for the dam were halted midway, and the place was just left like this." Mura explained as we continued to go through the place, looking for any signs of human life.

It didn't take long for us to hear the humming. The childish lyrics… made me wonder just how old Kuroha was. It was obvious enough it was Kuroha, judging by-

"Neko-san appears gallantly, everyone's favorite~"

Yeah.

"Um, Kuroha?" Mura calls out.

The black-haired girl goes stock still, and slowly turns to face the two of us, face crimson red. "...What?"

"You seem to be in surprisingly good spirits with your humming…" Mura points out, the tension leaving his shoulders. Straight man status, level up!

"What do you want! Why did you come here?!" Kuroha shouts, off-put by our sudden appearance. I'd be embarrassed if anybody else heard me humming in the shower as well, don't worry Kuroha, it's natural. Doesn't mean that I'm not going to remember every bit of that song you sung for future reference.

Mura searches through his bag and pulls out the papers the homeroom teacher had given him. "These are documents for school. You need to fill them in and hand them in by tomorrow."

Kuroha turns away from him, her back to Mura. "Didn't I already tell you? That I'm not going to school tomorrow."

"Huh," I muse aloud, "Woulda thought a girl like you would want nothing more than an ordinary life. Why'd you throw that all away, then?"

Her face turns into a frown, sadness and defeat settling into her frame. "Because I know I can't. Why do you get involved with me, anyway? Just leave me alone. It's troublesome."

"Kuroha, why did you help me when I was going to die from the mudslide?" Murakami speaks up. Death by mudslide? It's official, fuck nature and anything that could possibly be a god of bad luck.

"When you know that someone is about to die, and that you may be able to help them, are you just going to do nothing?" The witch responds.

"Void would, nine times out of ten." I grumble, then shut up once more, to let them have their own tense atmosphere.

"I'm the same." Murakami declares. "I can't just leave someone alone who will be killed if she's found. Let me help you. You can't continue like this, without knowing math or even kanji after being locked up in that research lab for 10 years."

"I-it's not like that kind of stuff even matters!" Kuroha replies, flustered at Mura's blunt tearing down of her skills. "Doing times tables and stuff wouldn't even help with daily life!"

"Please don't talk about that sort of stuff like it's Calculus or Trigonometry…" Mura sighs.

"You guys, things should work out decently if you resolve this insane sexual tension between the two of you." I say flippantly. The two blush a nice shade of red, which brings a smile to my face.

The moment of happiness is shattered by a girl's scream ringing out through the air, causing all of us to jerk in surprise and turn to where the scream originated from.

"The shrine?" I wondered. I step forwards to the shrine, confused. "What's going on her-"

A cloud of dust plumes upward as the ground at my feet _explodes_ and creates a hole that could have been me if I had stepped any further. Mura and I both freeze, looking at Kuroha in shock.

"Go home." The cold tone of Kuroha's match her almost lifeless eyes. Murakami wavers, shaken. That made sense. He was normal.

Me? I made a mad dash to the shrine, sprinting with all my might and disappearing faster than Kuroha must have expected, judging by the sound of an explosion right on my heels.

Gathering my strength, I _leaped_. There was no other word for it. My feet flew through the air, jumping the entire length of the distance and onto the roof of the house, landing without even a light clack. Anti-grav shoes, check. Still proving their worth.

I tapped the roof lightly with my foot, wary that it was going to give out on me any moment. I looked back to where Kuroha and Mura were, and sighed as I saw their reactions. Right.

Mura was understandably confused and pretty much out of his depth. I'd been his friend for a while, 2 months, yet he'd only found out the truth about Void yesterday and I hadn't explained all of the oddities that being with Void basically guaranteed. The things I had just done were clearly beyond the norm, with my insane speed and jump from the uniform's boosts clear evidence that what he knew -everything about "normal" people- was shattered.

Kuroha, though, was more odd. Just from seeing my jump and dash, even though it had been beyond human standards, she was shaking like a leaf in the wind. Was I really that scary? Did I remind her of something else? Well, no way of telling. I stepped forward, tensing up to hop off the roof-

And promptly crash through the rotted wood and into the shrine. "Owwww…" I whine. "That fucking stings. Hope I didn't get any splinters or something." I stood up and brushed myself off, not a mark on my uniform. The wood was also blunted and shredded around me, more than a few pieces of long wood almost having impaled me but instead just bouncing off my clothes.

A loud shriek pierced my ears once more, the sound seeming more mechanical now that I was closer to it. Covering my ears in irritation, I looked around and saw in the room across from me what looked like a full-sized gothic doll. Except, this doll didn't have the visible joints, any line marks, or overdone makeup, just the eerie stillness.

"Get away from me, you creep!" A girl's voice called out, originating from the same mechanical kind of sound as the scream.

Looking more closely, the doll-like girl was actually a girl. Just paralyzed, apparently, given how she could move her hand to type on that keyboard type of machinery.

"Uhhh…" I blankly responded. "Sorry for dropping in?" Damn that pun. Damn it to hell. "Were you the one screaming?"

"Yes! Kuroha, save me!" She continues to "shout".

Kuroha and Murakami come barreling in, panting and searching through the house in a panic, before their eyes finally fall on me. "Step away from Kana." Kuroha demands.

I shrug with complete nonchalance as I step backwards. "Thought the screaming was a poor tortured soul you had hidden in the basement. Glad to know that's not the case." One Gerbils was enough. His diet was hella hard to deal with. Carrying that much meat down to the basement was always a chore.

Kicking a few stray pieces of wood aside, I start looking around. "Do you guys have tea? I'm pretty thirsty. Don't worry about the mess, I'll take care of it."

"Please leave." Kuroha repeats firmly. The strength of her voice hadn't wavered, but it had gained a more wary tone to it.

"Nah, this place seems comfy." I reply. "Better some wood and nature than a stark square cube, eh?" Wait a minute...if they're really this badly off, they probably wouldn't have any good tea...shit. I've been spoiled. Why the fuck don't I carry tea in my bag of holding? Note to self, keep good tea in bag for the future.

Mura walks forward and looks Kuroha in the eyes. "Please, Kuroha." Her gaze doesn't soften, but she nods, and turns to go into the kitchen.

Sitting down on the floor, Mura hesitantly joins me. "Well Murakami, how do you feel now? Better, now that we've found your potentially long-lost childhood friend again?"

"I...don't know." Mura responds. Figures. He's pretty much in shock. Can't blame him.

"What's wrong with you both?" Ah, the doll speaks. "You, the one wearing a winter uniform in summer comfortably, you fell from the roof into the house, and you don't even have a scratch on you! And you, the wimpy noodle tagalong! Why are you even here, you creepy stalker!"

"Kana!" Kuroha admonishes from the doorway. She walks in, tea in hand for both of us. "We don't have much, but this is tea we have." The tea is passed to our hands directly, making the slight shaking of Kuroha's hands all the more noticeable.

I take a small sip, and immediately begin to retch. Wildgrass tea. _Wildgrass tea._ Dear God, what did I do to deserve this? I knew they would have limited options and the tea would probably suck, but this? No. No. Carefully waiting for a moment when Kuroha was busy looking over Kana and Murakami was trying unsuccessfully to swallow the tea himself, I use my enhanced speed to throw the contents of the tea cup out through the window behind me, before returning to my original pose, calm.

"So, who are you?" Kana asks bluntly. "Neko says you have some ridiculous strength and speed for a human, but males aren't witches. Are you from the facility, or something else?"

"First off, my enhanced...well, almost everything, that's not me. That's my clothes." I say. "As for who I am, I can definitely confirm that I am something else. That is, a normal human."

"Impossible!" Kana cries out. "That doesn't make any sense at all!"

"Dunno what you wanted to hear, but I'm most certainly a normal guy." I reply. "Sure, I can Jump Good, and Run FAST when I Gotta Go Fast, but other than that, pretty normal."

"What." Mura blanks out. "What."

"Well yeah, I got everything I need to be amazing. All provided by my asshole of a housemate, but still, he does good stuff from time to time." I answer. "It still doesn't make up for how many times he's fucked up the roof, the attic, and the portal to hell that is the basement."

"Wait, wait. Go back." Kana says. "Is your housemate from the facility? How can he do all this?"

I scratch my chin and think. "Well, if we're thinking about the same facility, then he was the IT guy there. He manages to do all this by sheer levels of assholishness that he reaches through endless trolling and simple enjoyment. Of course, he'd tell you something along the lines of his balls being magical or whatnot."

Mura and Kuroha seemed confused by my words, as though I had said something utterly ridiculous. Well, I had, but they were magicians too. Did this really strain their suspension of disbelief so much.

"Then, if he was from the same facility, then you should know at least a few things." Kana firmly responds. "Like what the lowest possible ranking for a witch is, and how the higher ranked ones are codenamed."

Probing questions, eh? Obviously I wouldn't know the answer to them, so might as well guess.

"I don't know what the ranking or code names for you witches are at all. What, do you go from a letter system starting from D all the way to S? And are your codenames all hilariously Japanese?"

Kuroha frowns at my response. "No, the witches who survive are ranked from B to AAA, and the higher ranks all have these foreign code names, like Valkyria."

"Huh. Norse mythos. Seems fitting, yet not." Here's to hoping that this manga wasn't going to try and take the Norse comparisons all the way with some sort of Ragnarok. "Anything else?"

Kuroha looks awkwardly at Kana as she fidgets a bit in place, obviously uncomfortable with the current mood. Mura sputters a bit as he takes another cautious sip of his own tea to be courteous. Hah. Wait, I still have the aftertaste in my mouth. Shit.

Reverting back to age-old procedures, I dug through my bag, and pulled out some of the food Void had set to the side for me if I had really gotten hungry. Opening the container, I took out today's meal. Braised short rib with some spices for taste, mash potatoes, a red wine sauce, and sauteed green beans with a drink of choice.

As soon as I had pulled out the meal, all three of them had drool coming from their mouths as the smell wafted over to them. Mura and Kuroha had adopted similar expressions and began inching closer to my lunch, causing me to slowly back away. "Hey Jin, you're sharing, right?" Mura asked more than a little expectantly.

"Nooo! I want to eat this great-smelling food too!" Kana shouts, stuck to her place on the bed.

Nothing cuts through an awkward air like really good food I guess. "Uh, sure you guys. Just...back off a bit, 'kay?" I held a hand out to try and keep them away.

They both settle down a bit as I take an appreciative bite first for myself, letting the glorious taste soothe my crying taste buds. Yes, life is beautiful again.

Breaking out of the trance with practiced ease, I cut up the meat and divvied up the meal to give the rest of them something to eat. Mura started eating ravenously, as Kuroha took one of the meals and looks at Kana piteously as she hesitates.

"Something the matter?" I ask.

"Kana...well, she can't really eat solids. I ground up the food for her, but this…" Kuroha looks downcast.

Shrugging, I rummaged through my bag, sticking my arm in and searching. Void probably stuck something in here… "Well, those are my books, that's the ice shaving machine, that's my pencilcase, oh that's my long lost Latin book, and…" Reaching in a bit further, my fingers stretch out and grab onto the object, pulling it out firmly and dropping multiple other items to fill in its space in the confines of my bag.

"Ta-da! A portable blending machine!" I dutifully ignore the sticky note put on it in Void's handwriting, hoping that the twitch in my eye wasn't too noticeable.

As Kuroha took the machine from my hands, Mura looked over her shoulder and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "Why does it say 'Margaritas' in English? And what is a Margarita?"

"Nothing. Important." I state with a sweet smile and closed eyes, signaling the death of that particular discussion before it would even begin.

Kuroha begins to blend the food as Kana quietly cries before tasting the food, and cries happily after eating the food. Foodgasms are a literal thing. Godlike cooking is a literal thing. I take a moment to just look back and wonder, how I had gotten here, and how this was almost the norm now. Least I don't pop a boner anymore. Neither does Mura thankfully, or maybe it's just cause I can't tell. Asian dick jokes are eternal, even if I am Asian myself.

After that entire scene, everyone winded down and began to discuss our future plans. Kuroha wouldn't be coming to school in order to stay safe, Kana was stuck here by provision of being paralyzed, and Mura and I would come back here after the school day to bring meals. Mura and I left the two witches to their own peace.

-x-x-x-

Tired and worn out, I trudged back into my home as night settled. I'd had to come home without my bike because the bus was too fucking slow to be able to go to the school and back. At the very least I wasn't dying from the heat and humidity thanks to my clothes. Clothes 1 - Weather 99.

Quietly opening the door, I walked in and saw Void playing on the coffee table, or rather, what used to be the coffee table. The last time I was in the kitchen, the table wasn't exactly capable of playing Starcraft as a holographic device.

"Soc, I need your APM to help me here, I stumbled into the Korean servers." Void says as his hands blur over the coffee table, not even able to spare a moment to glance up at me.

I pause for a moment as I continue to watch Void's Terran forces be bogged down in an endless wave of Zergs without mercy, ripping apart everything he had as he was attacked from at least three different directions at each major conflict point. "Wow man, you really suck. There's a reason this is a PC game, the keyboard lets you jump around and be more effective y'know." I say dryly.

"I haven't found all the keys and shortcuts yet, this is still new to me man." Void replies with panic in his voice, as his Battlecruiser signaled its premature death at the hands of the Zerg.

"Well, you obviously don't have enough hands for this." I state as his hands move even faster, trying to cover the entire span of the coffee table in approximately 0.3 seconds. "Want some more?"

"That is a great idea!" Void says as he snaps his fingers and an extra pair of arms pop out from his back and proceed to try and continue the futile struggle, only to get tangled up with his normal hands and flop around, resulting in him banging on the coffee table and accidentally turning the power off.

"I'll call that a tie." Void says as he retracts the two arms and leans back.

Well. Moment of truth. Time to see if I could convince Void.

"Void, Mura and I found Kuroha and a friend of hers hiding in an abandoned old town. We did manage to convince them that we weren't from the evil organization of evil with tiers of suspicious EVUUUHL, so we've got a decent amount of trust."

Void nods, and beckons for me to continue. I kind of doubted that he was still listening, but no point in giving it a shot.

"So… do you think you could find it in your tiny heart to help out the girls?" Immediately after the words came out of my mouth, I knew I had fucked up.

"Uhh, no." Void replied flatly. "Don't give a fuck. Speaking of handouts, did you leave your bike at school again or did you just leave it? Or...did you drive it off the cliff again?"

My left eye begins to twitch at Void's statement. "For the last fucking time. _You_ were the one who set up a shitty Mario Kart knockoff track without the Lakitu's to fish out the people who go over the side."

"Aw come on man, I forgot! It's not like you remember all the details of all the games you play." Void shrugs. "Besides, you had your uniform on, it's not like you were really hurt. I don't see what the problem was."

"It's a problem when you made the course hazard _fucking lava_." I ground out from my teeth. "But in any case, that's not the real issue here. If you could make some food for me to lug around, that'd be great. Just think of it as me pulling off bullshit magic tricks to make them confused. Is that better?"

Void gives an unassuming "Meh." That could mean literally anything when it came to him. Was it 'Meh, whatever, you can do it', 'Meh, you should feed Gerbils now', or 'Meh, let's go reenact the craziest scenes of Rick and Morty'?

Before I can question his Meh-language skills, I feel my bag become significantly heavier, despite the weight reduction that was worked into it. I gave a nod to Void, who decided to turn the table into a 2-d projector and let a computer program that gave shrill, 12 year old sounding screams into the mike every few seconds loop as he joined a room for a shooter game.

Making my way up the stairs, not even 30 seconds had passed till Void screamed in outrage. "What the hell is this bullshit!" I looked back and saw a kill cam showing someone spinning in the air before apparently taking Void out from halfway across the map. "So much for feeling like playing a shooter. Ugh."

I know that feeling bro. I know it so well.

Mind at ease, I got into my room, shut the closet while glaring at it, and went to sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

**In Which We Witness the Creation of Human Jello(Look, But Don't Eat)**

I woke from my slumber much as an ordinary teenager would.

Which is to say, I went right back to sleep.

Of course, the responsible part of me told me to get up and go to school already. Sure, there was a paralyzed girl in the middle of an abandoned town while people from a shady facility were looking for teenage girls who had luckily run away from some unspeakable experiments, but that didn't stop the sun from rising or from me having to go to school.

...on second thought.

I woke up, bleary-eyed, and looked at the clock. 6:30. Void wouldn't give a shit, he'd stay in. Course, I wasn't Void, so that meant I should start getting ready.

As I went through the morning ritual of showering, brushing my teeth, and trying to stay awake as I walked through the house which was apparently littered with Lego, I was greeted with the surprising sight of Void awake at around 7 in the morning. "Huh. You're up early."

"Yeah, I was trying to be a ninja, deal with caltrops and stuff." He winced as he took another step, a particularly nasty piece of Lego digging into his foot. "I'm rethinking that decision."

Face twisting in pain, Void lifts his foot gingerly and snaps his fingers, causing all of the Lego to disappear. "I've decided. Naruto wall-walking may be bullshit that's not for real ninjas, but it's much more reasonable than this crap."

I look at him blankly, before walking down the now empty hallway. "That was stupid, in more ways than one. Let's have breakfast. Unless ninjas have to fast as well."

"Done being a ninja for the day." Void immediately replies. "What are you up for today?"

"Hmm...how about we see if I can enjoy pancakes? Never remembered liking them much. Or waffles, for that matter."

"That'll be done in no time." Void confidently responds. He ushers me to the table, before taking refuge in the kitchen for all but a second before stepping out with a plate of pancakes. "Here you go."

Giving him a critical look, I poke the pancakes. "You didn't make it from thin air, did you?"

"Nope, been practicing time stops." He responds. "Getting other things to interact in time-freeze is annoying, but worth it."

Shrugging my shoulders, I accepted the plate with both hands and began to dig in. As long as he wasn't doing too much cloning shenanigans. One Void was enough.

Preparing to take a bite out of the pancake, I raised a piece to my mouth, and-

FOODPORNFOODPORNFOODPORN

-lowered my fork.

"Why are you holding up that sign, Void?" I asked as he lowered the large sign with the words 'FOOD PORN' written all over it.

"Well, I thought I'd help speed things along." He stated vaguely. "Also, my food basically results in food porn, from what you've told me about the reactions of others, so I have every right to claim ownership of making this anime world gain the subcategory: Food porn."

"I'm pretty sure we're not in Sh*kug*ki no S*uma. Besides, you were the one who was too lazy to check what fictional world we're in in the first place." I berated.

"Hey, sue me, exploring every little nook and cranny of Japan isn't fun." He says, as he eats his own serving of pancakes. "Besides, you stumbled into the plot somehow, so things will probably work out well enough."

I sighed as I decided to just eat. Breakfast was a quiet affair after that.

After I finished eating, I got to the door and waved Void off. "Have a good day. Don't accidentally make something that destroys the world while I'm gone."

"Kay." Void replies, as per our normal ritual.

I step outside, and walk down the porch steps, wondering what that niggling feeling in the back of my mind was, telling me I had forgotten something…

I looked out.

And out.

And out.

Oh right, my bike. I left it at school.

Shit. When I said we lived far away from other people I meant, 'We live 3 hours away from normal people by bus,' not '30 minutes outside of the city by foot.' Sure, I got home in time somewhat yesterday by pushing myself to the limit in running back, but that was all thanks to my outfit. The bike was something like a cross between a mountain bike and a formula one race car. I still don't understand how the gears work, because Void.

While I was wondering whether I should sprint to school or go at a controlled pace to not collapse at the front gates, I noticed something lying on the side of the porch, just out of view next to the bush. It was a brand new bike, similar in every aspect to my old one, except colored brown instead of yellow.

Right. So, there's that, I guess. Void does pull through, he's reliable-

I looked closer at the bike. On the handlebar hung a hot pink helmet with a visor that was rainbow colored.

Reliable at being a bastard.

Grumbling, I put on the helmet so as to keep my face from ripping off at the high speeds, and began pedaling off into the distance.

Little did I know, I was doing a very good Nyan Cat impression.

A Poptart fell off from the back of the bike.

-x-x-x-

Wheeling the bicycle in, I whistled as I saw Mr. Yoshimura stand at the gates, irritated by my near tardiness as he prepared to shut the gates as soon as the time came. I'd gotten off the bike several blocks before and stuffed the helmet into my bag, but I was still pretty sure that I was known as "the rainbow biker" or something like that by this point.

Moving to put my bike away, I noticed that the bike I had left behind yesterday was gone. Shame, I liked that bike. Yellow was a nice color.

Homeroom started up, and I found two seats empty: Kuroha's and someone else's.

"Settle down, class." The teacher said after the class representative had us all bow. "Takumi and Kuroha are out today, it seems."

That was odd. Takumi was one of the punks I'd beaten the shit out of before in order to ensure that the area behind the school could become my place of respite, and not littered with half-used cigarettes and plastic wrappers. It was necessary, and the suspension was pretty brief because I was a new kid. Wonder why he was out. Kuroha was probably staying behind to take care of Kana, I assumed.

As the school day passed by, gossip quickly began to bubble up about the absences of the two kids in our class. Wild theories and rumors abounded, as was normal in high schools. However, one bit of information that seemed far more legitimate cut through the rest, stating that Takumi had been riding a bike too fast on the streets and had ended up hitting a car, landing him in the hospital with several broken bones.

And it was a yellow bike too. Guess I know who to award Void's "Surprise Darwin Award" to for today.

Once school ended, I dragged Murakami aside and plopped him on the back of my bike, no longer caring about the Japanese traffic laws set up to prevent this kind of thing from going on. "Buckle the seatbelt, Mura," I said. "You're going to need it."

"Wait, what seatbelt?" He inquires as he looks around the bike. "And why does a bike need a seatbelt?"

"Get it from the side of the back wheel, attach it to the other end of the wheel, and then I'll show you why Takumi did a faceplant into a car." As Mura got buckled up, I began pedaling forward, moving a bit slower than usual due to the weight in the back, before accelerating more quickly and starting to go at speeds to overtake cars on the road we were on, going to the observatory at a brisk pace.

Mura was crying as the wind whipped at his face and he tried to desperately cling to me to not fall off the side of the cliff, and I laughed from behind my helmet as we zoomed through the path.

Life is great.

-x-x-x-

Upon our arrival, I slowed down and parked my bike outside the fence, stopping it completely and resulting in Mura slumping over and falling out of the backseat as the seatbelt became undone automatically. I hid the bike with a few twigs and bushes, and grabbed my bag as I leaped over the fence smoothly as Mura climbed over it on shaky legs.

The two of us quietly made our way through the abandoned village, on the lookout for any signs that the girls had been taken or that an unwelcome guest had come before us. We reached the shrine without issue, and quietly made our way into the old wooden building. The sounds of the two girls talking reached our ears, causing us both to relax and approach them.

"No! I don't want to eat any more wildgrass!" Kana whined.

Kuroha gave her a stern look. "We don't have an option as it is, we don't have any other source right now." Turning around to leave, she jumped in surprise at seeing us at the door. "M-Murakami! Jin! Don't scare me like that!"

"Well, we thought you'd be getting hungry." I said as I dug through my bag. "Luckily for you, we got ya some stuff." I stuck my arm shoulder deep into my bag, digging around. "No, not that, not that, not that either...alright, there we go." I pulled out a bunch of bananas and some onions, and continued to take stuff out, before realizing my arms were full. "Uh, you have anywhere I can put all this stuff?"

Startled out of her stupor, Kuroha guides me to the kitchen and lets me dump all of the food on the counter. The assortment of apples, bananas, onions, leeks, pineapples, coconuts, radishes, and jalapenos made for an impressive spread, but one thing stood out to me.

"Fuck. We don't have the utensils to set up some of these properly." I cursed. "Damn Void. He played me good."

"Umm, we can still eat some of these as they are." Kuroha reassures me. "We have a kitchen you can put the stuff down in, I'll show you." Stepping out in front of me, she leads me to another room, and I drop off the foodstuff in my arms. She picked up an apple and began to try breaking it into smaller pieces. After a good while of her futilely smacking the apple, I got the feeling that she might just use her powers on the poor little apple to pulverize it and think that it was fine. Trying to prevent a mess, I stepped in and took ahold of the apple.

"Here, let me try." Worn out and bruised from her earlier efforts, the apple broke into a decent chunk fairly easily as I pulled at it. Brushing off the seeds, I handed it to Kuroha who nodded in thanks and put it into the blender. As the loud whirring of the blender filled the room, I fell into the comfortable silence with Kuroha, who took a few glances at me every now and then, some worry evident from her looks.

I don't know what I could do or say at this point to convince her I wasn't with the very skeezy people who'd kidnapped and experimented on her, especially since I knew next to nothing about said organization itself as well as the facts and details of this world. Man, meta-knowledge is so fucking useful. How do people just not break entire settings with that alone? Oh right, the idiocy of humans and the fact that they don't always have a god in their corner.

With Kuroha done with the food-based liquid for Kana, I picked up an apple myself and chomped into it. The nice, sweet taste of ripe apple brought me back to my times in the countryside, breathing the fresh air-fuck. The food porn happened again. But it was just so _good_ that it felt impossible not to feel like that whenever I bit into one of the fruits or ate a meal.

Spreading the truth of this world having a "food porn" tag, Kana and Kuroha enjoyed the apples and practically salivated at the thought that this would be their new meal, not wildgrass. Murakami pulled out two cake slices from his smaller bag and tearfully sacrificed both of them to the girls, watching his sweet snack get happily eaten by the witches.

"Do you have any more of them, Murakami?" The two girls who apparently had a taste for sweets, looked hungrily at Mura's flimsy plastic bag. Ah, hopes and dreams. Void crushes those quite efficiently.

He shakes his head in response, causing Kuroha to droop slightly in disappointment. Standards are high to meet once you deal with Void, even through a proxy. I apologize very much for that.

Settling down, I sit back against the flimsy wall, cross-legged and let myself rest. "Man, coming all the way out here is annoying. How do you do it everyday, Mura?"

Mura shrugs. "I like astronomy, so taking the bus isn't that big of a deal. Besides, it's not like I spend every day there."

"Still, isn't it weird? You've also got that tutoring gig, so why have such a hassle? I know I'd never really be that dedicated to any team or club. Tried that with track, dropped out."

"I guess… you could just say it's a personal thing, I suppose." Mura answered after thinking a bit.

"Why are you two even still here?" Kana sharply cut in. "Do you both really have nothing better to do than lounge about here?"

Mura frowns a bit while I wave off the concern. "Hey, we came to give you food, but since I forgot to bring utensils, I feel a bit disappointed with my current standing as a guest. Thought I'd stick around as company. Not a lot of people in the mountains out here to talk to, I'd guess."

"We manage." Kana retorted. "Still, I'm not fully convinced about your friend. We don't have any proof that he isn't a witch from the facility, even though he obviously does have some powers of some sort." I could just tell she'd be glaring at my bag if she could actually move her neck. As it was, I made do with her words instead.

"So, what, you want me to bring him ove-wait shit that's a horrible idea. Horrible idea. Do not consider actually taking me up on that, don't. Never."

Kuroha questions me, confused. "What's so bad about your friend, then?"

I sigh, before trying to bring myself to explain. "Y'see, Void is...basically an asshole. Yeah." I start picking up more steam, confident in the truth. "He's a dick who doesn't hesitate to do things simply because he finds it funny or because he thinks it could be interesting. I have high doubts he'd actually care about you as people, as apathetic as he is. He has powers, he's an asshole, he violates the laws of physics worse than sonic-speed boob gainaxing, he enjoys leaving multiple lunchboxes on the countertop to see if I can guess which one has the deadly slime in it, he constantly gets his ass kicked on the Korean servers(this one is actually normal), he's an asshole, he decided to experiment with fire-blasting powers that melted down our concrete roof _before_ he got to working on his water-powers, proceeded to let the house burn down while he set up a jacuzzi with his newly found water powers instead of salvaging the house," -breath- "made _Gerbil_ , he's an asshole, proceeded to meme harder than me, let an ape out into the wild and had it hold a sign that said it's name was, damnit all, Ebmarah, strapped a baby doll onto it's back, is an asshole, and made it so my bike would 'accidentally' run red lights every now and then. Have I mentioned he's an asshole?"

Kuroha and Mura were giving some really weird looks. Kana just remained paralyzed on the bed as I slowly regained my breath, some of the blood slowly pumping through my brain calming down.

"I'm sorry." I breathe normally once more. "Where were we again?"

Kuroha slowly backs out. "I'll go make tea." She says with a bit of an odd voice. Hmm. Oh right, the shit tea. Again?

"No thank you, I'm not thirsty." I say, as I try to hide my voice cracking a bit after that passionate speech. "I'll be fine. I'm sure Mura would appreciate some, though." Mura looks at me with eyes of horror, unable to believe that I'd just sold him out like that as Kuroha dashes off.

As Kuroha leaves the room, an awkward silence settles over us. Mura seems to still be reeling, while Kana's fingers have gone still.

Before long, Kana speaks up again. "...so, are all those things you said true?"

"Only one or two aren't true." I respond. "Yet. The lunchboxes, he only ever puts one out. He doesn't let me choose between monster slime or good food."

Kana seems to have no words for the true level of dickery Void has reached. The ascension of the Buddha, freed from worldly values, now a dedicated troll. Or something.

"Is there anything actually good about Void, then?" Mura speaks up and asks.

"Well sure." I say. "You've eaten his food, haven't you? There's that, there's his cooking, there's his ramen, there's his meat… wait, that's all food." I shrug my shoulders. "In all honesty though, he's fun to talk with, he's a good friend to me. Can't vouch for the rest of the world's interactions with Void though."

The awkward silence returned with a vengeance, this time making it so that all of us were unable to even try and say anything. Goddamnit, this is the one time I wished I was raised as an Australian or something, then I wouldn't be bothered by making small talk this much I think.

Kuroha came back with more wildgrass tea for Mura, who paled as she handed the cup to him, accepting it with a shaking smile. He looked to me for help once more, and I gave him a smug look in response.

"Kuroha." Kana said. "Send them out."

The brusqueness of her tone surprised me. I was expecting sharp barbs from her dirty mouth, but this was more focused, as though she were trying to hold herself back from something. I stood up, curious at her reaction. "What's wrong? Need the bathroom?"

Kuroha looked over to Kana, and nodded. "Murakami, Jin, please go. Thank you for the food and everything, but you both have to go home now, before it becomes too dark."

"What kinda excuse is that?" I gave out a lazy drawl as I resisted little against Kuroha's push. "Easy there. You'd almost think you were glad to be rid of us."

"Jin, let's go. Let them get their rest, we need to go our own way as well...Kuroha?" Murakami trails off. "You have - a little something, your nose…"

"Eh?" She blinks. Touching her nose, she wiped a trickle of blood that ran down to her lips and marked her hand. "Oh no. I'm sorry, but you two _have to leave._ We'll see you later, so go."

Confused, but understanding that prying wouldn't get us any further, I decided to acquiesce to her demands. "All right, all right. We'll be going now. Don't forget, you can rely on us."

I dragged Murakami by the scruff of his shirt and plopped him onto the back of my bike once we reached the outskirts of the abandoned village, and recklessly made my way to his place, at a speed that would make radars go dizzy trying to record us. He, of course, screamed like a little bitch the whole way.

Going home myself and falling asleep, I drifted into slumber as I waited for the next day to come, hopefully with less annoyances from Void and more answers.

* * *

Another morning, another beautiful breakfast, and a reminder that I needed to buy a new helmet and eventually convince Void that rainbow trails from the rear end of my bike were annoying. I think I caused at least three car crashes from that alone yesterday. The school day went past relatively quickly, with Kuroha once again absent from school. We used the same excuse as last time to take her materials to go visit her home, and biked our way there, with Mura actually being able to hold in his lunch.

We quickly made our way through the village, experience helping us traverse the road more easily and reach the house where the girls were staying at.

"Hey, you guys. I finally got the knives and stuff, so we can actually cut up the goddamn pineapples!" I shouted through the house.

No response came to my announcement. I wondered if that hadn't gotten their attention, or if they were just too absorbed in something else.

"Oh yeah, and Mura is going to be a doing a stripper dance with a pole outside if you guys are into that sort of thing!" I called out as I continued to walk through the house. An odd scent was in the air, familiar and odd.

 _Blood_.

I'm way too familiar with that scent, and not just from nosebleeds. There was also an equally pungent odor vying for dominance that I couldn't make out, forcing me to cover my nose as I opened the door to the kitchen.

Inside lay Kuroha, blood splattered over the wall as she lay dissolving into a pile of flesh, leaning against the wall and trying not to die.

In this morbid situation, all I could wonder was just what exactly had put her in that state? She looked like fucking Human Jello.

"Jin?" She called out weakly. She tried to say something else, but a few sharp coughs robbed her of the ability to speak further.

"Yeah, I'm here." I replied. "What do you need?"

"Drugs...cabinet…" She forced out, causing me to start ransacking each and every cabinet in the kitchen. Thank god she actually didn't have much in this kitchen, or I'd have never found anything, what with how shitty my finding skills were.

I found what were some white and black drugs which I assumed were the ones she were looking for, and quickly tore off the strip and shoved two down her throat, while she was trying to push away my hand that was feeding her. Once she swallowed it, her struggles ceased, and her face gained a peaceful expression.

"Damnit." I swore. "What the fuck is going on?"

 **AN: Because I actually got bored enough to write for this again.**

 **Also, mood whiplash. First half is Gandalf sax guy 10 hours, the second is Crawling in my Crawl.**


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